


Begin Again (Tiny Treats, Species Imperative edition)

by eerian_sadow



Series: Species Imperative [21]
Category: Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Hatchlings, Microfics, Multi, Sparklings, implied rape, multiple mentions of The Fallen, post DotM
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-01
Updated: 2015-07-01
Packaged: 2018-04-07 04:31:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4249389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eerian_sadow/pseuds/eerian_sadow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The fallout from the Battles of Mission City and Egypt is still coming down, and more Cybertronians are finding their way to Earth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Autobots

1\. "Where is Jazz?"

No one missed the hopeful tone in Prowl's voice and the room fell silent. After long kliks, and with a deep frown on his face, Ratchet broke the silence.

"I'm sorry, Prowl. He's... he didn't make it."

The Praxian collapsed to the floor in an uncontrolled clatter.

 

2\. He could feel the jet twins' gazes, heavy with worry as Ratchet worked. He wished he was able to tell them that he would be all right now that the Prime's medic had him. Ratchet had been putting most of them back together since Megatron's rebellion began.

"Step back and let me work," the medic said, almost as if he was reading Bluestreak's mind. "They're going to be slow on purpose, but I've got his repairs well in hand."

 

3\. Jetfire And Jetstorm stared at Sunstreaker and Sideswipe in fascination. It lingered a bit longer than either of the ground bound mechs was comfortable with, and Sideswipe finally snapped out, "What, haven't you ever seen a pair of twins before?"

"Only one time," Jetstorm replied brightly. "Usually I am only looking at my brother."

 

4\. "Its a nice enough looking system," Trailbreaker said thoughtfully.

"It's nothing but water, rock and gas," Mirage protested. "Why couldn't the Prime have landed on a silicon or metallic world for a change?"

"I'm sure he stayed here just to get your plating dirty," Hound quipped, wrapping an arm around the slender mech.

 

5\. "T-tracks?"

"Hello, Eject." The blue mech extended a hand to the symbiote and Eject grabbed hold of it and pulled himself up into Track's hand. The small mech chirred happily when the warrior cradled him to his chest.

"Tracks not mad?"

"Why ever would I be mad at you, Eject?"

"H-have partner not Tracks."

"Oh, sweetspark." Tracks hugged Eject more tightly. "I was never angry about that. I was scared that I was losing my family."

"Nonono no." Eject's tone was final. "Make Sunstreaker part of family, not leave!"

 

6\. "Okay, Sergeant Epps, I think I've got the wiring fixed this time. Bring the phone systems back up slowly and see if we can prevent that cascade failure this time."

"You got it, my mech." The human gave Blaster a thumbs up before plugging in a phone cord. 

They both let out a sigh of relief as nothing more sinister than the phone's caller ID screen lighting up occurred.

"One down, four hundred and ninety two to go," Bobby said. "You wanna get a beer after we're done?"

"I can't drink beer, Sergeant," Blaster reminded him as he placed a test call to the single phone line. "But I'd love to go out with you and the others and ...hang out. Was that right?"

"Yeah, you got it." Epps grinned and reached for his laptop. "Glad you're getting the slang better than some of the others. One of these days, Ironhide is going to step on someone when they didn't actually diss him."

 

7\. "There is another shard?" Optimus Prime's tone was disbelieving.

"I don't think this is a shard." Lennox turned the monitor so that the Prime could see the small, softly pulsing cube the research team was studying. "I mean, it used to be a shard, but if the notes this team has made are right, the Allspark is regrowing itself."

"Regrowing itself." The large mech dropped heavily to the floor of the hanger, a flurry of emotions crossing his face. "Then my people have some hope, after all."

"Looks that way, yeah." The Human gave the Cybertronian a smile. 

 

8\. "Perceptor would have loved it here." Sideswipe stood next to his brother and stared out across the salt flats they had come to race on. 

"He would have," Sunstreaker agreed. "There's so much to study here."

"Maybe... maybe we should learn about it for him. He would have wanted us to be more than just fighters. Especially now."

"I'm not smart like he was," Sunstreaker protested. "But you're right that he would like us making ourselves better."

"Nobody expects you to become a science nerd," the silver mech quipped.

 

9\. "Excuse me, Miss Banes?"

"It's just Mikaela," The woman replied, extracting herself from the internals of the Jeep she was attempting to repair. She looked at the mech in front of her--the only one of them she had ever met who _looked_ as old as he claimed to be, and ten times a quirky--as she wiped her hands on a rag. "What's up, Que?"

"I have developed a device that will enable Humans of small to average body types in lifting objects of far greater mass than themselves. But since the glue grenades were such a spectacular failure, I can't find any volunteers to help test the design." The inventor frowned.

"Ugh, the glue bombs. We're still finding that stuff stuck to walls and ceilings." Despite her words, Mikaela laughed. "You know we had to shave Sam's head to get it out of his hair?"

"I... did not realize, no. Was he hurt?"

"No, we don't have nerve endings in our hair, or sensors like you have in your cables." She indicated the wispy fiber optics that floated around his head. "He's fine, except for having a pretty severe tan line."

"Oh good!" Que's concerned face broke into a smile. "It worries me that I will hurt one of you accidentally, because I haven't learned your stress tolerances yet."

"We're pretty good at squawking when it hurts," the human replied. "So tell me more about this thing you want me to test for you. It's some kind of heavy lifter?"

"Yes! In a large scale, it could be used for moving almost anything, but in a small scale it would be useful for for things like the engine of the vehicle you are repairing and..."

 

10\. "What are you working on?" Ironhide set a can of fuel--distilled from a gas vent using technology he didn't even pretend to understand--down next to the Wrecker before sitting down on a bench across from him. He sipped at his own can of fuel, ignored the taste and waited for the other mech to acknowledge him.

After nearly a minute, Roadbuster looked up from his sketch pad and reached for the fuel. He made a face at the flavor when he sipped at it. "A cannon, but maybe I should be working on an energon converter instead."

"Que's experimenting with some design of Perceptor's that the twins were carrying around. You keep working on cannons." He older mech took another drink of the fuel and admitted to himself that it was really, really bad. "I'll trust your weapon designs over his any vorn."

The Wrecker grunted noncommittally and looked back down at his sketch pad.

"I'd trust your designs over Skywarp's, too."

Ironhide felt a moment of satisfaction when he saw the small smile lift Roadbuster's face. At least the mech knew a compliment when someone gave him one.


	2. Decepticons

11\. Starscream had hesitated to lead Megatron to the Fallen's ship, wary of exposing the warlord to so many hatchlings again. The huge mech was unpredictable at best since his resurrection and the Seeker didn't know how he would react to the Fallen having used the old technologies of the Primes to build more... organically grown protoforms and newsparks.

But in the end, they had nowhere else to go, and the troops still on board the ship would need guidance as well. 

"He kept us here," Starscream told his leader, tone dark. "For two of the humans' years, rebuilding our army. He said it was an honor."

"Ha. The Fallen would not have known honor from an exhaust vent." Megatron reached up and ran a single claw thoughtfully over a hatchling pod. The larval Cybertronian inside approached curiously and peered out at the large mech. "These will be _our_ legacy and _our_ future, not his."

"Yes, my master!" Starscream relaxed slightly, relief rushing through his lines. Megatron would not kill the hatchlings. Not today, at any rate.

 

12\. "Breakdown, report." Motormaster stared out the viewport at the small blue and green world below them.

 _"Not much Decepticon presence left on this rock,_ Breakdown replied over the comm. _"Drag Strip saw a fight in someplace called Singapore, and I found reports about a huge throw down in a country called Egypt. If Megatron was here, he's gone now."_

"Lord Megatron would not have summoned us if he were on the retreat. He is keeping his presence hidden from the Autobots and their allies." The huge mech frowned. "You and Drag Strip keep gathering information on the Autobots. Dead End, Wildrider and I will attempt to find our leader."

 _"Yes, commander."_ Breakdown sounded weary, perhaps more weary than the rest of them given his time on the Earth planet, but he didn't argue. _"Breakdown out."_

Motormaster allowed his subordinate to cut the communication and turned to look at the rest of his team. "Dead End, attempt to contact Soundwave. Wildrider, continue scanning for Ultra Magnus' location. If the Prime is here, he _will_ be following."

"Yes, sir," Both mechs replied.

The Stunticon commander turned back to the viewport, scanning for any visual proof of his leader's existence and ignoring the nagging fear that he had arrived at his Lord's side too late.

 

13\. "This blows exhaust," Blitzwing said sourly, hunkering down as small and tightly compact as he could in the engineer's compartment of the alternate mode Astrotrain had taken on to blend in on Earth. (That the alternate mode way covered in simulated rust and tipped over sideways in a scrap yard wasn't helping his mood.) "Why's Starscream got us hiding out? We should be smashing Autobots into the ground!"

"Shut up and think!" Astrotrain snapped back. "There are two of us and at least ten of them. Even if they're all those little two-wheel models, they'll take us down in a few kliks with the shape we're in."

"Well, then we should be trying to meet up with the Stunticons and their pet medic! You heard Breakdown's comm, same as me!"

"No way. We're safer right here until Starscream contacts us. I'm not getting destroyed by two-wheelers and squishies because you're bored!"

 

14\. Soundwave hadn't needed to be coaxed away from the humans' satellite network after the Fallen's defeat. He had watched events unfold in Egypt with a wary optics and began disconnecting from the network once it was apparent that Megatron was not going to win the day. He left the Autobots' allies a few surprises as he pulled back--the kind Blaster or Jazz would be able to detect easily, but only one of them was a viable threat now.

Then, he made his way to the starship the Fallen had traveled on. He knew what he would find inside--he had refused the former Prime's commands to contribute his own spark energy to the hatchling pool and the Fallen had not been strong enough to hunt him down and force his compliance--but he found himself curious to see these hatchlings. 

The growth cells were almost disturbingly organic, but each contained a clearly robotic lifeform. Some of the young mechanisms swam to the front of their pods to watch him, while others rested and still others simply ignored him. He felt a jolt, though, as one of the hatchlings stretched out a barely formed limb and _pushed_ against the membrane wall of its cell.

Instincts he hadn't used in vorns forced him forward and he caught the tiny mechanism as the membrane broke and it fell toward the ground in a rush of fluid. Tiny optics peered up at him, and he was struck by a feeling of connection to the hatchling.

"You are mine," Soundwave told it, and the hatchling crooned in agreement. The communication specialist lifted the hatchling to one of his symbiote docks and the tiny mech extruded connecting fibers as if he had always been made to join with Soundwave. Their systems linked together in perfect harmony as the fibers slid into the correct connection ports and the adult's processor hummed with a sense of rightness. "Sundor."

 

15\. Commanders Cyclonus and Scourge drifted in orbit around the small, frozen outer planet of the solar system that Soundwave's signal was steadily calling the Decepticon army to regroup in. There were coordinates, and instructions for individual units to meet with their commanders or replacement commanders.

Galvatron's name was not on the list of commanders, and they were being given no additional instructions. Scourge raged. Cyclonus mourned. 

Neither of them had any idea of what they would do next.

 

16\. His optics glowed in the darkened room as he plotted his escape. He didn't know the aliens who had imprisoned him, but he would _destroy_ their entire world when he broke free. His most loyal commanders would be at his wingtips and they would see the planet _burn_. And when he was free, Galvatron would rise again to take his place at Lord Megatron's side and finally become the ally his brother deserved.

Starscream would wish he had never even dreamed of setting him up.


End file.
